There's something about that house, Jake thought. It makes me want to put my head under the covers and hide. What is it? Everything is in shipshape condition. Maybe that's it. It's too neat. Then he peered closer. It's the shades, he thought triumphantly. The ones in the bedroom at the end of the house aren't the same as the others. In the picture they come through a lot darker. I didn't notice that when I was shooting, but the sun was pretty bright then. He whistled. Wait a minute. When I looked up the Karen Sommers story on the Internet, I think I remember that she was murdered in the corner bedroom, on the right-hand side of the house. I remember a picture of the crime scene with those windows circled.

Why not show a separate picture of just those two windows in my story? he asked himself. I could point out that there is a dark aura surrounding the fatal room where one young woman was murdered and where Laura slept for sixteen years. It would give it a nice, eerie little touch.

To his disappointment the enlargement of the photograph revealed that the difference in color was probably caused by interior dark shades that had been drawn behind the decorative ones visible from the street.

Or should I be disappointed? Jake asked himself. Suppose someone is staying there who doesn't want a light to show? It would be a great place to hide. The house has been renovated. There's furniture on the porch, so I assume it's furnished. No one lives there. Who bought it anyhow? Wouldn't it be a scream if Laura Wilcox owns her old house and is holed up there now with Robby Brent?

It's not the dumbest hunch I've ever had, he decided. Should I bounce it off Mr. Deegan? he asked himself.

The heck I will, he decided. It's probably a crazy idea, but if there's anything to it, it's my story. Deegan told the captain to toss me in jail. Now he can just go fly a kite. He gets no more help from me.

75

Sam's visit to Dorothy Connors' home lasted exactly the fifteen minutes he had promised her. When he saw how infirm she was, he proceeded gently, and he quickly surmised that the concern she had shown was for her late husband's reputation. Knowing that made it easier for him to get to the point.

"Mrs. Connors, Dr. Sheridan spoke to Peggy Kimball, who at one time worked for your husband. To assist Dr. Sheridan in finding her daughter, Ms. Kimball stated that Dr. Connors on occasion may have circumvented the rules governing adoptions. If that Is your concern, I can tell you right now that Dr. Sheridan's daughter has been located and the adoption was absolutely legal. In fact, Dr. Sheridan is going to have dinner with the adoptive parents this evening and will meet her daughter very soon. That part of the investigation is over."

The naked relief reflected in the woman's expression was confirmation that he had dispelled her concerns. "My husband was such a wonderful man," she said. "It would have been awful if ten years after his death, people began to think he had done something wrong or illegal."

He did, Sam thought, but that's not why I'm here. "Mrs. Connors, I promise you that nothing you tell me will ever be used in a way that could sully your husband's reputation. But please answer this question: Do you have any knowledge whatsoever of how someone might have had access to Jean Sheridan's maternity file in your husband's office?"

There was no trace of nervousness left in Dorothy Connors' voice or manner when she looked Sam straight in the eye. "You have my word of honor that I have no knowledge of any such person, but if I did, I would share it with you."

They had been sitting in the sunroom that Sam suspected was where Mrs. Connors spent most of her time. She insisted on walking him to the door, but as she opened it, she hesitated. "My husband handled dozens of adoptions during the forty years he practiced medicine," she said. "He always took a picture of the baby after it was born. He put the date of birth on the back of each picture, and if the mother had named the baby before she signed it away, he wrote that down, too."

She closed the door. "Come with me into the library," she said. Sam followed her through the living room, continuing through French doors that led to an alcove filled with bookshelves. "The photo albums are in here," she said. "After Dr. Sheridan left, I found the picture of her baby with the name Lily inscribed on the back. I confess, I was terribly afraid that hers might have been one of the adoptions that couldn't be traced. But now that Dr. Sheridan has located her daughter and is going to meet her, I'm sure she would like to have a picture of Lily when she was three hours old."

Stacks of photo albums took up one entire section of the shelves. The section had been labeled with dates going back forty years. The album Mrs. Connors pulled out had a page marker in it. She opened it, slid a picture from its plastic covering, and handed it to Sam. "Please tell Dr. Sheridan how happy I am for her," she said.

When Sam got back to the car, he carefully tucked away in his inside breast pocket the picture of a wide-eyed infant with long lashes and wisps of hair framing her face. What a beauty_; he thought. I can only imagine how rough it must have been for Jean to give her up. I'm not that far from the Glen-Ridge. If she's there, I'll drop it off for her. Michaelson was going to call Jean after he spoke to me, so she's probably all squared away about meeting the adoptive parents.

When Sam called up, Jean was in her room and readily agreed to meet him in the lobby. "Give me ten minutes," she said. "I just got out of the tub." Then she added, "Nothing is wrong, is it, Sam?"

"Nothing wrong at all, Jean." Not at the moment, at least, he thought, even though a pervasive sense of unease would not leave him.

He had expected Jean to be radiantly happy at the prospect of meeting Lily, but he could see that something was troubling her. "Why don't we go over there?" he asked, nodding his head toward a far corner of the lobby where a sofa and chair were unoccupied.

It did not take long for Jean to tell him her concern. "Sam, I am beginning to believe that Mark is the one sending the faxes," she said.

He saw the pain in her eyes. "Why do you think that?" he asked quietly.

"Because he let slip that he knew I was a patient of Dr. Connors. I never told him that. There's more. He was inquiring at the desk yesterday to see if I had received a fax and apparently was disappointed that it hadn't come in. That was the one mistakenly included with someone else's mail. Mark told me he worked at Dr. Connors' office in the evening during the time I was seeing the doctor. Finally, he admitted he saw me at West Point with Reed. He even knew Reed's name."

"Jean, I promise you, we'll take a very close look at Mark Fleischman. I'll be honest. I haven't been happy that you've been confiding in him. I hope you didn't pass on to him anything that Michaelson told you this morning."

"No, I didn't."

"I don't want to alarm you, but I think you need to be careful. I bet we're going to find that the person sending the faxes is someone from your graduating class. Whoever it turns out to be-Mark or one of the others who attended the reunion-I don't believe anymore that it's about money. I think we're dealing with a psychotic and a potentially dangerous personality."

He studied her for a long minute. "You were beginning to like Fleischman, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was," Jean admitted. "That's why it's hard for me to believe that he may be a totally different person from how he appears on the surface."

"You don't know that yet. Now I have something that may perk you up." He took Lily's picture out of his pocket, explaining what it was before he handed it to her. Then from the corner of his eye, he saw Gordon Amory and Jack Emerson coming through the front entrance of the hotel. "You may want to take it upstairs before you look at it, Jean," he suggested. "Amory and Emerson just showed up, and if they see you, they'll probably come over."